ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / September 10, 2008) – Mindanao Island in the southern Philippines has become a battle ground, not only of skirmishes between Filipino troops and Moro rebels, but of their propaganda.
Militant groups and political activists, including leftist organizations opposed to President Gloria Arroyo’s rule, have also joined in the propaganda war. Communist rebels too, are now calling the Filipinos to topple the US-backed democratic, but scandals-laden Arroyo government.
Politicians who wanted publicity also are issuing statements about the situation in Mindanao. And civilians are paying a high price for the senseless wars in the restive region.
Since fighting broke out last month, more than 200 people had died and over half a million more are in temporary shelters put up for war refugees in Mindanao and the hostilities continue.
Seven mostly Muslim civilians, including children and a pregnant woman, who died Monday from a military air strike Maguindanao’s Datu Piang town added to the long list of war victims in the southern Philippines.
And the latest casualties had been used both by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the Philippine military in their propaganda.
The rebels accused the government forces of killing innocent civilians and the military insisted those killed were either MILF members or had been used as shield by guerrillas fleeing the offensive. And this happened during Ramadan, Islam’s holiest month.
Militant groups and other allied organizations were quick to condemn the killings and at the same time pursued calls for Arroyo to step down. And those calling for Arroyo’s ouster were tagged by police and military as communist rebels and if they are members of any Muslim militant groups, authorities would tag them as terrorists and listed as enemy of the state.
Militant groups and political activists, including leftist organizations opposed to President Gloria Arroyo’s rule, have also joined in the propaganda war. Communist rebels too, are now calling the Filipinos to topple the US-backed democratic, but scandals-laden Arroyo government.
Politicians who wanted publicity also are issuing statements about the situation in Mindanao. And civilians are paying a high price for the senseless wars in the restive region.
Since fighting broke out last month, more than 200 people had died and over half a million more are in temporary shelters put up for war refugees in Mindanao and the hostilities continue.
Seven mostly Muslim civilians, including children and a pregnant woman, who died Monday from a military air strike Maguindanao’s Datu Piang town added to the long list of war victims in the southern Philippines.
And the latest casualties had been used both by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the Philippine military in their propaganda.
The rebels accused the government forces of killing innocent civilians and the military insisted those killed were either MILF members or had been used as shield by guerrillas fleeing the offensive. And this happened during Ramadan, Islam’s holiest month.
Militant groups and other allied organizations were quick to condemn the killings and at the same time pursued calls for Arroyo to step down. And those calling for Arroyo’s ouster were tagged by police and military as communist rebels and if they are members of any Muslim militant groups, authorities would tag them as terrorists and listed as enemy of the state.
The Kawagib Moro Human Rights Organization on Wednesday said the attacks launched by the military troops were no longer against the MILF, but an attack to Muslim civilians and communities.
It said the military initially denied the incident, but later admitted that the air strike had killed the civilians. Security officials had insisted government plane used machine guns and rockets to put down the rebels and not bombs as reported by residents.
“Their statements contradict to what they are doing, and we are used to these lies of the military whenever they committed human rights violations. They denied they used bombs but later admitted they dropped rockets to scare MILF. They said those killed were rebels, but photos and reports showed that all the victims are minors and civilians,” Bai Ali Indayla, Kawagib’s spokesperson said.
“The government and its troops are again showing its military might and it seems that there is an undeclared Martial Law here. What the military committed is a big violation to the International Humanitarian Law, the Protocols of War and Human Rights and the military officials in command should be held accountable and for disrespecting the rights of the Muslim civilians to peacefully observe the holy month of Ramadan,” Indayla said.
The Philippine Army in Maguindanao province branded the slain children as “child warriors” of the MILF.
The Children’s Rehabilitation Center (CRC), a non-government organization helping children in armed conflict cope with trauma, also deplored the military’s aerial attack on the civilians.
“It is doubly appalling that the military persistently use the ruse of branding children as child warriors whenever they are made to account for their human rights violations. How can these young kids mistaken for children warriors?” asked Maria Esmeralda Macaspac, CRC executive director.
Macaspac scored the military’s penchant for branding children they had killed in their operations as “child warriors.” “The women and children were already fleeing from the military operations in their barangay (village) when they were hit. Would their lives be considered as mere collateral damage?”
She said that it is already inexcusable that the military continues to fail to draw the line between civilians and combatants in their military operations. “Many civilians have already been killed and hundreds of thousands more have been forcibly displaced by the military operations. Every time the government declares war, the civilians are the first to be killed and be displaced rather than be the first to be put to safety,” Macaspac said.
The Maoist-inspired Moro Resistance and Liberation Organization also urged citizens to rise up against Arroyo.
“The Moro Resistance and Liberation Organization urges the Moro people to live out the spirit and call of the Qur'an to pursue peace and justice and fight against oppression and tyranny by intensifying the struggle for the self-determination and frustrating the attacks of the US-Arroyo regime.”
“The MRLO urges the MILF to continue to pursue the path of revolutionary armed struggle and to unite with other revolutionary forces to fight the fascist US-Arroyo regime. The struggle for the right to ancestral domain must continue and commanders who are engaged in tactical offensives against the AFP and the interventionist US troops must be fully supported,” Omar Mukhtar, the group’s leader said.
The outlawed Communist Party of the Philippines also condemned the killings of the civilians in the air strike and put the blamed on the Arroyo government and the US military for the fighting in Mindanao.
“The people must concentrate their anger and condemnation on the US-Arroyo regime as directly responsible on the deaths and damages of the people in Mindanao caused by the escalation of the armed clashes between the AFP and the MILF.”
“The problem can be rooted to the US-dictated two pronged militarist policy of the regime which is the all-out war against the revolutionary movement led by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) while neutralizing the Moro secessionist movement of the MILF thru a deceptive and bogus peace process to finish the revolutionary movement in 2010,” rebel spokesman Frank Fernandez said.
The MILF is the country’s largest Muslim rebel group which is currently negotiating peace with Manila, but talks had been suspended after a series of rebel attacks led by Ameril Kato and Abdurahman Macapaar killed dozens of civilians in North Cotabato, Lanao del Norte, Sarangani, Maguindanao and Sultan Kudarat provinces.
The United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross, including the Organization of the Islamic Conference have expressed grave concern over the fighting and the humanitarian crisis in Mindanao.
Arroyo has ordered security forces to pursue Kato and Macapaar, but at the same said that “violence must stop, order must be restored, and peace must be our goal. There is no room for wanton violence against innocent civilians.”
“It is in the best interest of all Filipinos, Muslims and Christians, to end the violence that has held that part of our country back,” she said.
“Continued fighting and war is no alternative to a lasting peace. The government is on the side of peace and needs the support of all Filipinos, Christian and Muslim alike, if this opportunity for peace is to be realized and if the country is to prosper.”
“We must now secure peace, order and stability in the region and then reassure all the people that we can then move ahead with any broad-based discussion on the peace process – this includes bringing relief to affected refugees and victims and bringing to justice those purveyors of violence,” Arroyo said, but for political activists the statement was just another government propaganda aimed at masking the real situation in Mindanao, where over half a million hungry war refugees are housed in temporary shelters. (Mindanao Examiner)
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